Animals & Society Institute
Compassionate Communities for All
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
As Mahatma Gandhi is often quoted as having said, “The greatness of a nation [and its moral progress] can be judged by the way its animals are treated." In fact, animals are everywhere—in our homes, in our children's storybooks, on farms, in our national parks, and on many dinner plates. Yet we often don't think about the countless roles animals and humans play in each other's lives. That's a missed opportunity. We believe there is much to be learned about human-animal relationships and work to be done to make communities more compassionate for all. That's the work we do.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Human-Animal Programs
The Animals & Society Institute’s Human-Animal Program equips people who are working in the areas of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention and treatment of animal abuse with state-of-the-art resources. We train human service providers to identify, evaluate, and treat individuals who have abused animals. We provide the public and a wide range of professionals with information and resources, including a database of effective and promising human-animal interaction programs and practices, virtual trainings and in-person presentations on children’s relationships with animals, and intervention programs. Our research-to-practice briefs translate research on human-animal relationships into information that shelter, rescue and other "hands-on” animal agency professionals can use to improve the well-being of animals and people alike.
Human-Animal Studies
The Animals & Society Institute promotes Human-Animal Studies by disseminating information about the field and opportunities to work in it. We provide this information via our e-newsletter and our website, which includes the only database available on animal studies courses, faculty, and programs. We also offer a range of programs and resources to help faculty, students, and independent scholars who are interested in pursuing research, study, and/or teaching in the field.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Total number of periodical subscribers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Related Program
Human-Animal Studies
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This represents the circulation of our Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science.
Number of downloads of the organization's materials and explanations
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Related Program
Human-Animal Programs
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This represents the number of annual article downloads/views from our Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science.
Number of participants attending course/session/workshop
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Related Program
Human-Animal Programs
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
This represents the number of people who received ASI's Human-Animal Program trainings, workshops, and curricula.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
ASI aims to improve and expand knowledge about human-animal relationships in order to create safer and more compassionate communities for all. We are different from organizations that focus only on either animal welfare or human welfare. Our focus is the relationship between animals and people. We aim to be the international leader in translating research on human-animal interaction into practice and equipping people who want to understand and improve human-animal relationships with the knowledge and tools they need to get results.
We are working towards a world in which:
● Every person who works to improve human-animal relationships has—and uses—the most current and accurate information available;
● Every student in higher education has access to Human-Animal Studies courses, no matter what college or university they attend;
● Human-animal interaction programs are based on science and have demonstrated positive results; and
● People—particularly children—who abuse animals are identified, held accountable, and receive effective intervention to prevent repeating the behavior.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
In 2018 we will build on our success by:
● Promoting ASI's intervention program for animal maltreatment offenders and bringing it to more cities nationwide and abroad;
● Welcoming another group of early-career scholars to the Human-Animal Studies Summer Institute;
● Launching a database of evidence-based and promising human-animal programs;
● Awarding the fifth annual International Development Project Award to support creation of a Human-Animal Studies program at a university outside the U.S.;
● Offering online and in-person trainings on animal abuse prevention and intervention;
● Promoting the Undergraduate Paper Prize, which encourages students to pursue research in Human-Animal Studies, and our online journal for undergraduates, Sloth, which gives them an opportunity to publish their research; and
● Publishing a special issue of our journal, Society & Animals, focused on how wildlife conservation affects relationships between humans and wild animals.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
ASI's greatest asset is our human resources, including our small-but-expert staff, our talented board of directors, and our cadre of volunteers who offer hundreds of hours of in-kind service every year. In 2017, we recruited an accomplished executive director, Linda Huebner, who has worked on behalf of animals for decades. She has significant hands-on experience caring for a variety of domestic, farmed, and wild animals and has also advocated for non-human animals via friend/fundraising, outreach, education, public-speaking, media relations, and legislative advocacy for various organizations.
Linda works closely with our directors or Human-Animal Studies, Dr. Margo DeMello, and Human-Animal Programs, Dr. Lisa Lunghofer, each of whom has more than 20 years' experience working in the field. Margo is a renowned author who has published more than a dozen books on HAS and serves as an adjunct professor at Canisius College in the anthrozoology master's degree program. Lisa has worked extensively in the areas of child welfare, violence prevention, child and adolescent well-being, animal welfare, and the human-animal bond, and has served as a consultant to animal- and child-related programs throughout the U.S. and internationally. In collaboration with Margo and Lisa, Linda provides leadership and manages day-to-day operations with the support of Daniel Earle, our highly skilled managing director.
Our nine-person board of directors includes animal welfare experts, a business executive, clinical psychologists, attorneys, advertising and marketing professionals, a development specialist, and a 2017-18 Farmed Animal Law & Policy Fellow at the Animal Law & Policy Program at Harvard University. In addition to providing governance and oversight, board members are actively involved in ad hoc committees that are instrumental to ASI's success.
Volunteers also play a critical role in helping ASI to achieve our goals. We have recruited highly skilled volunteers to assist with graphic design, website development, and information management systems, among other areas of expertise.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Highlights of our achievements in 2017 include:
● We gave 29 young scholars a once-in-lifetime opportunity to pursue their passion for Human-Animal Studies. In collaboration with our partners at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign's Center for Advanced Studies, we launched the Summer Institute for Human-Animal Studies.
● We educated professionals about animal abuse as a community problem, presenting “Animal Abuse and Interpersonal Violence," a day-long workshop at the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which was attended by more than 30 professionals from diverse disciplines. As a result of the workshop, the local domestic violence shelter began formally including animals in safety plans.
● We built the capacity of international universities by awarding the 2017 International Development Project, in conjunction with The Humane Society of the United States, to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, located in Mumbai, India. The award supports creation of a HAS program, including an accredited course for master's students, a fieldwork placement with an animal protection organization, a seminar series, and an end-of-year workshop that brings together students, scholars and practitioners from across India.
● We worked to make communities safer for all by launching a one-of-a-kind intervention program in Syracuse, NY, with 14 participants who had been convicted of misdemeanor animal maltreatment offenses.
● We remained in the forefront of publications on HAS, announcing the publication of two new titles in the Brill Human-Animal Studies Book Series and the publication of Human-Animal Studies, the first German-language textbook in the field.
● We worked to improve animal welfare internationally, helping Concern for Helping Animals in Israel to create a training on the relationship between animal cruelty and other types of violence and antisocial behavior to be presented to more than 100 imams at the College of Sharia Law.
● We continued to promote HAS at the undergraduate level with our online journal, Sloth; our Undergraduate Paper Prize, which includes the winner's paper being published in ASI's journal, Society & Animals; and the launch of a new Student Animals & Society Institute (SASI) chapter at University of Redlands.
● We used program evaluation to assess the effectiveness of HAS courses, surveying students from five HAS classes at four universities (two in the U.S. and two in Europe) before and after taking the classes. The statistically significant results suggest that HAS classes positively affect students' attitudes toward animals.
● We provided more than 300 animal welfare professionals with tools to improve practice, presenting “Planning for Success: Using Logic Models as a Road Map" at the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators (SAWA) 2017 Management Conference.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Animals & Society Institute
Board of directorsas of 10/09/2023
Dr. Anne Elizabeth Hirky
No Affiliation
Term: 2022 - 2025
Kenneth J Shapiro, PhD
Retired
Gail Luciani
Retired
Anne Hirky, PhD
Yeshiva University
Thomas Aiello, PhD
Valdosta State University
Kimberly Spanjol, PhD
Iona College
Julie Iovine
Laura Jane Sheridan
Humane Society International
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data